This article contains essential information on the 13 proven and successful Exam tips and tricks.
You may have been wondering how and why you always do not get it right or probably you intend sitting for a forthcoming examination and you need tips and tricks to help you scale through in flying colours. Be anxious for nothing because this article has got you covered. In this article, you will get to know and understand the basic simple steps needed to pass an examination with ease from the revision stage to the examination stage.
13 Proven and Simple examination tips and tricks:
A. Preparation stage
1. Plan revision.
Organise a good revision plan and follow it. Avoid revising a particular subject all day long. You can switch them up properly by revising one subject in the morning, another one in the afternoon and another in the evening. Do not study one subject all day because you may end up not covering all the subjects before the examination. Organising your study schedule is very important so as to know when to study and what to study.
2. Active revision.
You do not expect to pass your exams by just flipping through your study notes. Yes, you may have been taught, yes you may have attended classes but let more of your brain be engaged in the revision because the more you revise the more you will remember. The memory is not a part of the brain where things go in and out. There are various components of the memory, which are; verbal memory, visual memory, audio memory, muscle memory, etc. How often you memorize information helps the brain retain information.
You can make up mnemonics, make a summary of the notes, derive key points and pen them down. This is better than just reading because your brain is involved.
3. Solve past questions.
Solving past questions keeps you abreast on how the questions are being set. Get the past questions of the subject(s) you are preparing for and work through them. If you are finding it difficult to attempt a question then check if it is still in the syllabus. The importance of solving past questions can not be totally emphasized. The truth is, anyone who does not prepare for an examination solving past papers has minimal chances of doing well in an examination.
4. Difficulty in solving past questions?
Do not be shy to ask questions, you can ask a fellow student whom you feel knows the answers to put you through. Often times, study groups help improve revision rate. Having a study group does not mean you take all the problems and begin to bombard yourselves with them, no! A study group is only useful when you have actually studied and then you need to discuss what you must have studied. This is a way of helping you assimilate better on what you must have studied.
Another option is, making an appointment to see the lecturer or teacher of the course or subject. Lecturers are usually open to questions and are willing to give answers to them. However, anyone who goes to the teacher or lecturer asking for the solutions to an exam question without first making an attempt is likely to be told to go away and do some more work. This is to help you improve on the way you approach questions that are difficult to answer. Give it an attempt.
5. Do not be exhausted.
One of the common pathetic methods of revision among students is the last-minute cramming. Some call it “TDB”(till daybreak). This is a step to failure already – you end up so exhausted in the examination and you probably end up performing below expectation. It might work for the first one or two examinations, but I bet you would not be able to keep it up throughout a whole series of examinations.
6. Shorten important facts.
Probably you are about sitting for an impromptu exam, definitely, you would not have much time to cover up the subject, so this is where cramming comes into play. You can cram some facts into short-term memory. At this point in time, you will need to go through the notes looking at those important points. Jot them down and try shortening them for easy assimilation. After doing this, try taking a walk to breathe in fresh air and keep your nerves calm.
B. The Examination stage
7. Go through the questions carefully.
First and foremost, take some few minutes to go through the questions carefully. Then, select the questions you are ready to answer and the order in which you are going to answer them.
Attempt questions having in mind the one that will score you more marks. Do not go for the simple ones with small marks and leave the difficult ones undone. Attempt the difficult ones because there are marks attached to every step of an answer given.
Reading all of the questions is also essential because some questions give insight in solving a problem.
8. Attempt the easiest questions first.
It is not mandatory to answer questions in the order which they appear on the question. Therefore, do the easiest ones first.
There are two reasons for this: First, securing a question with the correct answer at the beginning of an examination is an amazing boost to confidence and can aid in reducing any feelings of tension that might come up when looking at the harder questions.
Second reason is that: the easiest question(s) is likely to take less of the time unlike the difficult question(s). This implies you will be ahead of time from the beginning which is another good confidence boost. This also implies that when you get to the most difficult question, you may then spend all the time you have left trying to solve it, without having to drop it half-way through and come back to it later, if time permits which is not a good idea if it can be shunned.
9. Look at the number of marks allocated to a question.
Do not spend 30 minutes writing a long essay that carries just two marks. People still do these funny acts. It is totally a waste of time which is better spent on other parts of the question.
The marking schemes are really strict. So, if there are four marks available for the definition of “curriculum” then the marking scheme should probably have four key points. If you mention them all, you will get the full marks, as simple as that.
10. Do not get stuck. Move on.
Shun writer’s block, you do not have much time to spare. Probably, you get stuck on a question, move on. Start doing another one. Looking at a question you do not have an answer to or a clue at the moment is a total waste of time. So move on, and you would be amazed how the question becomes clearer when you fall back to it after thirty minutes.
11. Always explain what you are doing.
It would look so funny to an examiner to look into your script and find out you had written the formula without indicating what you used it for. But if you had written the formula then indicate its variables and solved correctly, of course, you would get a good mark for that. But if the answer is wrong, then sometimes it is difficult to know what they were supposed to be. And definitely such students would score zero for an incomprehensive answer.
Do not just write down long solutions of mathematics. Explain what you are trying to do with the derivation before you set off, and add comments as you go. It is easy and can gain a lot of marks for method, even when the answer is wrong. Same goes for all subjects or courses.
12. Running out of time?
Suppose the only time you have got left is the time to answer only one question, yet you have two questions left to answer. Which one do you choose? The way to maximize your marks is to do the first half of both of them. You gain marks faster at the start of a question than at the end.
If you do not have time to write sentences, but you do know what to do, then just go ahead and write key points. If you do not have time to do the calculations, write and explain what calculations you would do. You can get marks for method.
13. Never leave an exam early.
I used to have a friend in college who spends just 20 minutes in an examination hall for an examination meant for an hour and thirty minutes. And I would ask myself if he was actually an Artificial intelligence. But when results came out, he failed the whole thing fully. I believe there should be no reason to leave an examination hall so early like you are being chased out of the hall.
There is always something you can do to improve your paper, something to add to earn more marks. Check, and check again. When you have finished, start back at the beginning, and try to do the questions in multiple ways, and check if they tally. Add more explanations if need be.
